Ukraine agrees defense deal with Germany to help in fight against Russia

BERLIN (AP) — Ukraine and Germany are starting work on plans for the joint production of advanced drones and other battle-tested defense systems, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday, as Kyiv looks to scale up its more than four-year fight against Russia’s all-out invasion.

“We have proposed to Germany a bilateral drone deal covering various types of drones, missiles, software and modern defense systems. Our teams are starting concrete work,” Zelenskyy said at a joint news conference with Chancellor Friedrich Merz during a visit to Berlin.

Merz said that Germany’s commitment to supporting Kyiv's war effort is “a very clear signal” to Russia.

“We will not waver in our efforts to defend Ukraine,” he said.

U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to end Russia’s war on its neighbor have recently petered out as the Iran war grips the Trump administration’s attention, although Tammy Bruce, the deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told the U.N. Security Council on Monday that Washington “will continue to push for a negotiated and durable end” to the war.

Russia has occupied about 20% of Ukraine so far. That includes the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia seized in 2014.

Ukraine has the capacity to produce twice as much military equipment as it's currently deploying, but lacks funding to step up production, according to Zelenskyy.

“We simply don’t have enough money,” he said.

A key to unlocking that potential lies in obtaining a promised loan of 90 billion euros ($106 billion) from the European Union, which had been held up by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, but his impending departure from office after a weekend election could now free up the money.

Ukraine needs those funds “urgently,” Merz said.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who accompanied Zelenskyy to Berlin, said Germany and Ukraine agreed a defense package valued at 4 billion euros ($4.7 billion). The agreement is “a massive boost” for Ukraine's air defense against Russian barrages, Fedorov said on X, allowing Kyiv to buy “several hundred” American-made Patriot missiles.

After Berlin, Zelenskyy was due to visit Norway, another important financial and military ally, while defense leaders from the 50-plus partner nations who regularly gather to coordinate weapons aid for Kyiv will hold an online meeting Wednesday, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said.

Kyiv is heavily reliant on U.S. intelligence for targeting inside Russia and needs more sophisticated American-made air defense systems to stop Russian missile attacks on its power grid. If the Iran war drags on, it could erode vital U.S. support for Kyiv, Zelenskyy fears.

Furthermore, the Ukrainian army is short-handed, facing around 200,000 troop desertions and draft-dodging by around 2 million people, Fedorov said in January.

Germany will help Kyiv facilitate the return home of Ukrainian men of military age, Merz said.

“We need rapid, tangible progress here,” he said.

Domestically developed unmanned platforms are playing a vital role in holding back Russia's invasion. Ukraine makes air and sea drones, missiles that have reached around 1,750 kilometers (1,000 miles) into Russia, as well as battlefield robots that help make up for its troop shortage.

Ukraine has been approached about security cooperation, especially battle-tested drone production, by eight Middle East and Gulf countries, as well as Turkey, Iraq and countries in Southeast Asia and Africa, Zelenskyy said on Monday.

Despite its handicaps, Western analysts and officials say Ukraine has in recent months recorded battlefield successes against Russia’s bigger army, disrupting a spring offensive started by Russia amid improving weather, as fields dry out and new foliage on tree lines offers more cover.

Meanwhile, the long-range drones and missiles that Kyiv designs and produces are repeatedly striking oil facilities and manufacturing plants deep inside Russia.

Ukraine “is in a much better place than it has been at any stage in this horrific war,” Finnish President Alexander Stubb said at the Brookings Institution in Washington on Monday.

Ukraine “is on top from a military perspective,” Stubb said, noting that last month Ukraine fired more drones and missiles at Russia than vice versa.

Moscow has also claimed progress on the battlefield. Independent verification of each side’s claims wasn't possible.

Meanwhile, a Russian missile attack on the eastern Ukraine city of Dnipro killed four people and left 21 hospitalized with injuries, 10 of them in serious condition, regional authorities said Tuesday.

The city’s attorney general’s office said the victims, all civilians, were driving or walking past the scene of the strike in the city, 485 kilometers (300 miles) southeast of Kyiv.

Elsewhere, a 52-year-old woman was killed in a Russian drone strike in the southern city of Kherson that also left one man seriously wounded, authorities said.

Hanna Arhirova reported from Kyiv, Ukraine. Derek Gatopoulos contributed to this report from Kyiv.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz attend a press conference at the German-Ukrainian government consultations in Berlin Germany, Tuesday, April 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

German chancellor Friedrich Merz welcomes Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for German-Ukrainian government consultations in Berlin Germany, Tuesday, April 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

German chancellor Friedrich Merz welcomes Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for German-Ukrainian government consultations in Berlin Germany, Tuesday, April 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

German chancellor Friedrich Merz welcomes Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for German-Ukrainian government consultations in Berlin Germany, Tuesday, April 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

It’s been 135 days since the start of the Iran War, and a diplomatic solution seems shakier than ever. President Donald Trump said Monday that “we’re taking over the Strait of Hormuz,” a day after announcing that “we bombed the hell out of them.” Iran also asserted control of the formerly freely navigable waterway after retaliating with attacks on Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and Oman.

And Congress is returning following the death of Sen. Lindsey Graham. His death after a tear in his aorta Saturday leaves Republicans with just 51 members, with Mitch McConnell still recovering and South Carolina’s governor needing to appoint Graham’s interim successor.

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South Carolina law requires a one-week filing period beginning July 21, for a special primary to be held on Aug. 11. A runoff if necessary would be held on Aug. 25, leaving the nominee just over two months to campaign for the general election on Nov. 3.

All of this is problematic according to federal law, which requires military and overseas ballots to go out 45 days before any federal election. For the general election primary, that would have been June 27. Federal Election Commission officials didn’t immediately return a message seeking clarity.

No Democrat has won a Senate seat in South Carolina in decades, and Republicans in recent history typically take statewide seats by double digits. When he last ran in 2020, Graham defeated his Democratic opponent, Jaime Harrison, by a 10 percentage point margin. But Republicans are carefully surveying the landscape after margins have tightened in other races.

Charleston pediatrician Annie Andrews won the Democratic nomination last month and has raised more than $8 million, with just under $3 million cash on hand at the end of May, according to federal filings. Graham had taken in $6 million, with just over $4 million on hand.

In a statement Sunday, Andrews called on South Carolinians to join her “in setting partisanship aside and offering gratitude” to Graham for his service.

Graham’s death on Saturday as he was running for a fifth term begins a tumultuous new chapter in South Carolina politics. As the conservative state’s senior senator and an influential Trump ally, Graham was presumed to be on a glide path toward reelection.

Now, Gov. Henry McMaster must choose a temporary replacement to serve until January while the state also prepares a special primary so voters can choose a new Republican nominee for November’s general election. That appointed temporary caretaker could be a top contender in the special primary.

The rare open Senate seat has ignited a scramble among South Carolina’s most ambitious conservatives, who just finished a sprawling and bruising contest to succeed McMaster. State Attorney General Alan Wilson won the nomination. Also-rans including Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, Rep. Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman are all now eyeing Graham’s seat following his death over the weekend.

Mohammed Mokhber, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, says Tehran will fight for the Strait of Hormuz.

“We defend it so that in the future, for the passage of our ships, we are not forced to pay tribute to the enemy!” he wrote on X. “Retreating from this vital matter has no place in the mind of any friend of Iran.”

That’s what Trump said Monday on Fox News Channel’s “Fox and Friends.”

Both the U.S. and Iran asserted Monday that they controlled the Strait of Hormuz after a weekend of attacks stretching across the wider Middle East, further threatening any diplomacy to end the war.

Trump also said that “everything was agreed to” in an 11-hour meeting Sunday, but Iranian negotiators called back later “and they say, ’we had to make a couple of changes.” He didn’t specify details.

The latest exchange was sparked by an Iranian attack on a container ship on Sunday in the strait, a critical waterway for international oil and gas over which Iran has asserted control since the United States and Israel started the war on Feb. 28.

Congress is returning after a summer break, with the Senate convening following the death of Sen. Lindsey Graham. His death after a tear in his aorta Saturday leaves Republicans with just 51 members, with Mitch McConnell still recovering and South Carolina’s governor needing to appoint Graham’s interim successor.

This makes Trump’s already contentious congressional agenda even more uncertain. It also leaves Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy without a key ally who had Trump’s ear: Graham was a strong supporter of Ukraine, pressing the president to be firmer on Russia President Vladimir Putin. Now Zelenskyy and Kyiv are reeling from his death.

Albert Salgado, left, is comforted by his girlfriend at the site where his uncle Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was shot by an ICE officer in Houston on Friday, July 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Annie Mulligan)

Palestinians gather around the site of an Israeli military drone strike on a blacksmith shop in Gaza City's Sabra neighborhood killing at least four Palestinians and wounded another, according to officials at Shifa hospital, where the casualties were taken on Sunday, July 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Three boys play in the shallow waters of the Strait of Hormuz, as a plume of smoke rises from an explosion in the background, off Bandar Abbas, Iran, Monday, July 13, 2026. (Razieh Poudat/ISNA via AP)

FILE - Former President Donald Trump listens as Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., speaks at a campaign event at the South Carolina Statehouse, Jan. 28, 2023, in Columbia, S.C. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)